


Glass Palaces

by crocs (orphan_account)



Category: Descendants (Disney Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen, Happy Ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-30
Updated: 2019-10-30
Packaged: 2021-01-13 03:20:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,671
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21237287
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/crocs
Summary: Ben blinked, still stood up. “Audrey? What are you doing —”“Oh, you recognise me,” Audrey said, flipping her hair behind her shoulder. Pink, Ben registered. “How kind of you. I thought Mal might’ve cooked up something to make you forget, seeing how you’re basically treating me like chopped liver.”(AU: Instead of saving him until the end, Audrey goes to confront Ben straight away. Somehow, it all turns out for the better.)





	Glass Palaces

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I don't own anything.
> 
> **Broke:** Ben going along with the plot to close the Isle when he was the one that wanted to open it in the first place  
**Woke:**

Ben sighed, pressing his back to the bedroom door.

He crossed the room to his desk. He rubbed his forehead.

The council meeting had gone terribly — and he’d gone with it. He’d just _gone_ with it. Audrey was gone, Uma was still underground, _Mal_ wanted to shut the barrier — going against his first decree as king — and the kids that they’d given letters to were feeling so homesick he’d had to start a VK club after school. Sure, Evie liked to spend time with them — Carlos and Jay, too — but it still made Ben want to kick himself.

Nothing that he did seemed right.

And now the only thing that Ben _had_ done right was threatening to unspool.

Mal wanted to shut the barrier. He’d wanted to show her that he trusted her - because he did, he really did — but this was too much. And Ben felt pushed to the limit; he felt like he was going to buckle and fall and all those kids they hadn’t been able to meet would just be sat, waiting there for nothing to happen.

He wanted to kick himself. This was something Ben cared about. By agreeing with Mal, something he’d already done, he was dooming it.

Ben collapsed onto his chair. He hung his crown onto his unlit desk lamp like a lampshade and wrestled with the idea of turning the computer on. He still had work to do, but it was late at night; he’d have a rotten night’s sleep if he worked on spreadsheets now.

For a second, Ben thought of Uma’s hand in his own.

Then he pressed the _on_ button and waited for it to boot up.

Before he could, though, a sharp breeze ran across his back. Ben tensed from the cold as he looked at the window — he could’ve sworn it’d been closed — before standing up and shutting it. He breathed out. A cloud of condensation bloomed on the window. Ben resisted the urge to draw a picture.

He turned back around to face his computer, cold wind forgotten.

Then Ben paused, stopping dead in his tracks.

Audrey. Sat there, with her fingers curled around — was that the sceptre? — and the faint crackle of electricity in the air. She crossed her legs, sat on his bed. A brass crown was on her head, one Ben had never seen before. It certainly wasn’t Aurora’s.

Ben blinked, still stood up. “Audrey? What are you doing —”

“Oh, you _recognise_ me,” Audrey said, flipping her hair behind her shoulder. _Pink_, Ben registered. “How _kind_ of you. I thought Mal might’ve cooked up something to make you forget, seeing how you’re basically treating me like chopped liver.”

“Mal didn’t do anything,” Ben defended, but somehow he felt like he was digging himself deeper. “Why are you here?”

Audrey raised an eyebrow. “_Benny_-boo,” she crooned. It was tinged with something… uncomfortable. “Do you think if Mal hadn’t drugged you, I’d be the one engaged?”

The engagement. _Oh. “_I love Mal, Audrey.”

“With that helping hand, I’m sure,” Audrey said. Her grip tightened on the sceptre, her knuckles going pure white. “_Answer_ me, Ben.”

“I don’t know,” Ben confessed, finally. He ran his fingers through his hand as he sat down on his desk chair, spinning around. “We broke up.”

Audrey laughed. It sounded loaded. “You confessed your magic love in front of everyone, embarrassing me and our whole relationship. And you _never _apologised to me.”

“You moved on pretty quick.”

“I — What?”

Ben threw up his hands. “With Chad, I mean. You kissed him at the game right after!”

“I’m not here to talk about _Chad_,” Audrey said. “I’m here to talk about us.”

“Sure,” Ben said.

Audrey frowned, clearly not expecting _that_. “What?”

Ben spread his hands wide, shrugging.

“Let’s talk about us,” he said. “Let’s talk about how we were _forced_ together as kids by our parents. Let’s talk about how we were groomed from birth to be queen and king and the only reason why we’re not both, in our _own_ right, is because my dad made it so that _he_ was the only king in Auradon that mattered and your mom lost the fight to keep her throne in the ways that mattered, Audrey.”

He stood up, agitated, beginning to pace. Audrey looked away, and then back at him. She sighed. “Ben —”

Tired, Ben held up a hand. She crossed her arms in response, hunching slightly forward as she listened.

“Let’s talk about how my first proclamation as king — that we were going to start bringing kids from the Isle over — is going to be dissolved,” he continued. “How the one person I have always had the back of is saying that we need to close the barrier for good, and because I always _have_ her back I can’t disagree and stand up for —”

“_Ben,” _Audrey said, standing up. She reached forward, putting a hand on his forearm as Ben turned back to her. “Mal… wants to _shut_ the _Isle_?”

“One of the villains nearly got through,” Ben reported. “It’s an issue. Mal agrees, but she’s not the only one. That’s the _thing_. If I were so… I don’t know, oblivious not to know that my subjects and my Council were keeping quiet on the issue just to please me, what _other_ things have I screwed up?” He looked down. “Can we _talk_ about _that?”_

Audrey stalled. Her mouth opened to stutter _something_ out. She ran her hand up his arm until he shrugged it off, moving to sit on the bed. After a second, she followed, crossing her legs like they were still kids, not a king and — whatever Audrey had become now.

Ben eyed the sceptre that was now resting against the flowery bedroom wall, thinking. “Why are you here, Audrey?”

She followed his line of vision and hung her head. “I… was sort of planning to kill you,” she confessed. “Or, at the very least, put a sleeping spell on you. I don’t know. I was angry. I am _still_ so angry, Ben.”

“At me,” Ben finished.

“I don’t _know_,” Audrey repeated, sounding as exhausted as Ben felt. She shot another look at the sceptre. “At first, I guess. And then I started thinking about everything else, and it called out to me, and I… sort of stole it.”

Ben raised his brow. “What, did you trip and fall into the trophy room?”

Shocked, Audrey coughed — and then let out a hoarse laugh. The electricity in the air seemed to fizzle out as she laughed, putting her head in her hands. She flopped backwards as Ben began to chuckle too — first out of awkwardness, and then, finally, out of desperation.

She looked at him, sobering. Their faces were close, laying on the bed — so close that Ben could see every fleck in her brown eyes.

“I’ve missed this,” Audrey said. “Us. Being friends, at least.”

Ben rolled over, looking up. There were still spots on the ceiling from where he’d stuck up glow in the dark stars, age eight.

“Yeah,” he admitted sincerely. “Me too.”

Audrey breathed out heavily, stretching out like a cat. “So, what are you going to do? About everything?”

“It’s all screwed up,” Ben said. “I know what I want to do, but, frankly, I wouldn’t know how to do it and I can’t exactly trust my own judgement right now.”

“Then trust mine,” Audrey said. “And I say trust your gut. What do you want to do, Ben? My… King?” She affixed him with a playful smirk.

“Okay, A: shut up, you are never calling me that again, that sounded _so_ weird coming from you,” Ben rushed; Audrey only grinned harder. “And B — I need to track down someone I haven’t seen since Cotillion.” Audrey raised an eyebrow, hidden slightly by her hair. “Uma.”

“Uma? You mean the _second_ girl that tried to make you fall in love with her using magic?”

“No. Okay, yes,” Ben conceded, “but Uma’s a great leader, too. When I was on the Isle, I saw how much all the kids there looked up to her. Her crew adores her. If this piece of legislation gets through, I need to make sure that the people of the Isle know about it — know that we’re going to try and fight it. Uma can tell them that.”

Audrey blinked. “‘We’?”

_Oh_. “Me,” Ben amended. “And whoever I can get to help.”

“You better turn that back into ‘_we_’, then,” Audrey said. “I can help you find her.”

“You can?” Ben gaped. “Auradon has been trying to for a year, now — why didn’t you say —”

“Because, before, I didn’t have the sceptre,” she cut in. “Uma’s a creature of magic, right? And whatever _that_ did to me, I am too, now. I can call out to her.”

“You’re sure?”

“More than anything,” Audrey said. She eyed the room around her. “I’ll need space.”

Ben nodded.

“The docks,” he said, pulling Audrey up with him. “I need time to change. Midnight. Witching hour, right?”

Audrey rolled her eyes. “Sure, Benny-boo,” she finished, waving her hands free of his own. She moved to the door. “…Ben?”

“Yeah?”

“…Don’t be afraid to stick to your principles. Ever,” Audrey said.

She left. The sceptre was in her hand. It gave off a green, ghost-like smear of light as it disappeared.

Ben switched off his computer.

It took him a while to change, but Ben got down to the docks as fast as he could to make up for it. He was basically running by the end of it — he thought about driving, but he’d quickly realised it would get more attention that it was worth. Even after years of not being the Beast, his father still had exceptional hearing.

So, in fact, did Ben — which meant even when Audrey was meaning to be quiet he still heard her sneaking out of the shadows. 

“Hey, Audrey.”

A sigh. 

“Nice,” Audrey said, as she took him in.

Ben looked down at the clothes he’d only really ever worn to the Isle. “Thanks,” he said, pulling the leather jacket tighter around him. “Can we get on with this? It’s cold, Audrey.”

Audrey finished her eye-assessment of his outfit and nodded. She produced her staff and put both of her hands around it, pushing it far away from her body.

“Now you do the same,” she said, sliding her hands down so that Ben had ample space to place his own.

Ben did the same. “Are you sure I won’t… y’know, get my hair dyed or anything?” he asked, half-joking and half _really_ not.

Audrey considered it for a moment. “Probably not,” she said, adjusting her grip, “but we can’t be sure until we try.”

“So can you —”

“I’m concentrating,” Audrey said. After a moment, her eyes flickered — green, like the sceptre’s light; green, like Maleficent’s eyes. And Mal’s, Ben thought. “_Uma,”_ she said, simply.

Ben stumbled as the scene shifted around him. The image of the docks contorted and evaporated like smoke from a fire.

It faded away to the mouth of a sea-cave. The walls were lit up with magic sigils, ones that Ben was sure would’ve been banned in Auradon. The water was a technicolour, turquoise blue. He couldn’t see the bottom.

So this was where Uma lived.

Ben looked around him properly. He was standing, alone, on top of a rock jutting out from the water. Audrey was nowhere to be seen.

Neither was Uma.

He crouched down. If she _was_ here —

Ben let out a strangled scream as two hands curled around his jacket collar. His knees buckled as he nearly fell into the depths. His hands shot out to steady himself.

Uma’s grip tightened on Ben. “Give me a reason not to kill you,” she said. “And make it a good one, I’m bored.”

“If you kill me now,” Ben grunted, “your crew’ll be in danger. Everyone you care about —”

Uma rolled her eyes, releasing him.

Ben fell back onto his backside roughly. He grimaced.

“You’re all the same,” she commented, a bitter laugh bubbling up out of her. “Auradonians. Thinking you can fix everything.”

“How many people from Auradon have you met? And talked to, properly?”

“One,” Uma said, “and it was enough for a lifetime.” She looked at him, cocking her head. “I swear you were wearing that the last time I met you, by the way. Do you not _have_ another outfit?”

Ben tugged his hat down further, self-conscious. “That’s not what’s important,” he blustered through. “Uma, you need to tell —”

“I need to do this, I need to do that,” Uma said. “Newsflash! My crew and I live on the Isle. We’re always in danger. We survive on scraps from your _illustrious _country —”

“Scraps that you might not have in the future,” Ben interrupted. Uma blinked. “The Council wants to block off the Isle forever. Ignore it. Destroying it.”

Something flickered over Uma’s face. Something unsure. “…And _you’re_ telling _me_ this. Why? So you can gloat?”

“So I can make sure the people know,” Ben answered. “I need you to tell them.”

“You’re the king,” Uma said. “_You_ need to tell them.”

“I’m the king of Auradon,” Ben agreed, “but you’re the Queen of the Isle, Uma. Do you honestly think they’re going to listen to me?” _After what I’ve just agreed to?_

Suddenly, a shot of pins and needles ran up his arm. Ben hissed and grasped it. He looked down. His hand was nearly transparent — the spell was wearing off, he realised.

Uma started at the sight. “What —”

“Believe it or not, I didn’t track you down myself,” Ben said. He curled his ghostly hand into a fist. “My, uh… ex helped me get here.”

“What’s she channeling through?” Uma asked. She raised an eyebrow. “Must be something powerful to keep up an illusion so long.”

Ben thought about the sceptre. Then he thought about Uma’s plan to steal the wand. “Um,” he lied. “I can’t remember.”

“_Sure_,” Uma said, sarcastic, even as the world began to swirl around her. “I’ll tell them. So,” she said. “Are you going to fight for us or them?”

“You,” said Ben. “I think it’s always going to be you guys, Uma.”

After a second, Uma nodded. Then the cave slipped away like sand in an hourglass.

Ben was left standing, still gripping the sceptre.

He let go with a sharp gasp, like he was waking up from something surreal. Audrey — who hadn’t moved — sucked a deep breath in.

Her eyes flickered from green to dark brown. “What happened?” Audrey asked. “What did you see?”

Ben looked out to the sea. “I found her,” he said. “She agreed. She tried to kill me, which is one step further than you got. What did _you_ see?”

“Rude,” said Audrey, ignoring his question. Then she paused.

“I think — I saw a lot. A lot of stuff I didn’t understand. Some of it I recognised from Fairy Godmother’s classes, but the rest?” She shook her head. “I wasn’t thinking of something to find. Not like you. I think I was just…” she trailed off. “Floating. Like how I’ve been feeling the last year, really. Like there’s nothing to lose.”

“Wow. Deep.”

“Shut up.”

“Seriously,” Ben said, chuckling. “What are you going to do now?”

“I think I might have to train,” Audrey said. She looked at the sceptre. “Like it or not, I think magic’s a part of me now. It’s like it’s pulling me.” She huffed. “So Mom’s not going to be proud. It might be looked down upon here, but —”

“You can practise in my palace any time,” Ben cut in. “I… maybe it would be good for you. If you still feel like you’re floating.”

“Thank you,” Audrey said, quietly. She crossed her arms, looking out at the deep. “What do you get out of this, Ben? What do you do it for?”

“A friend,” said Ben, simply.

He pulled her into a loose side-hug, kissing her temple.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading!


End file.
